


The B-Word (of Doom)

by Carisa_Ironfell



Series: The Series (of Doom) [4]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Boredom is serious business, Boyfriends of Doom, Eobard eats everything, Gary for No Reason, Gideon is Scheming, League of Knife Nuts, M/M, Nate loves everyone, Ray Palmer has no peripheral vision, The Care and Feeding of Your Speedster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 12:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21428218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carisa_Ironfell/pseuds/Carisa_Ironfell
Summary: Staying alive is hard when you have the attention span of a gerbil.Eobard's two idiots come up with a plan to make his boredom go away.What does that have to do with Ray?
Relationships: Damien Darhk/Eobard Thawne, Eobard Thawne/ Malcolm Merlyn, Malcolm Merlyn /Damien Darhk, Malcolm Merlyn/Eobard Thawne/Damien Darhk, Nate Heywood/Ray Palmer
Series: The Series (of Doom) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1538092
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	The B-Word (of Doom)

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, disclaimer! This was written by my lovely sister, and I had little to do with that process. I am simply posting it for your (hopefully) enjoyment. We hope you like it!!

Eobard strongly considered flipping over his desk. He had this urge every once in a while, but never had it been as strong as it was today. There were papers scattered untidily all over its surface and none of them were helping him.

“Why is trying to be alive so boring?” he demanded, flipping over the desk. There was a crash of pottery and Eobard peered over the edge of the desk. He’d forgotten there was a mug buried in the mess. At least it had been empty before it was broken, so that his papers weren’t stained for when he was forced to go back to them.

“Eobard, what was that?” Malcolm shouted from downstairs.

“Are the Legends finally attacking us?” Damien added with an edge of unholy glee in his voice.

Eobard went downstairs using his speed. The two assassins, his irritating and idiotic boyfriends, were entangled on the couch. It looked like Malcolm was trying to restrain Damien, judging from the one free arm the white-haired man had and the wildly swinging knife in his hand.

“There aren’t any Legends. I turned over my desk. I had no idea that tracking down a way to keep myself alive could be so profoundly boring,” Eobard complained, disgusted.

Malcolm and Damien froze and fixed identical looks of horror on him.

“Did you just say the b-word?” Malcolm asked in a hushed voice.

“He did. We’re in serious danger,” Damien confirmed. They swiftly disentangled and stood.

Eobard frowned, beginning to be creeped out.

“What are you two talking about? What is the b-word? Why are you whispering?”

“Eobard, you said the word boring. Since Eddie decided to devote an entire chapter in the book to speedsters and boredom, you can understand why we would want to take the situation seriously,” Malcolm said, adopting a firm and compassionate expression. “So, we are going to help you get over your boredom post-haste.”

“It’s not that big of a deal. I’ll stop working for a while and get back to it when my head’s back together,” Eobard replied. Clearly, his former ancestor had exaggerated. Boredom was an unavoidable part of life, especially academic life. Being a speedster didn’t mean that his boredom was anything to worry about.

Then again, he knew Barry. He would absolutely give Eddie a nightmare scenario of what a speedster was like when he was bored. Eobard could just imagine the Flash bouncing off the walls and ceiling to find something to do.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Malcolm said, hoisting Eobard off his feet.

“Mal, that’s going overboard,” Damien said, finally stowing his knife back wherever it had come from. Eobard had searched him multiple times and still never found all the knives.

“Don’t be jealous, it’s unattractive,” Malcolm retorted. “I’ll do you next time.”

“I look forward to it,” Damien said, in the tone that said Malcolm was going to be hurt the next time he tried to touch Damien.

Eobard rolled his eyes. The both of them were exactly what the League of Assassins had made them: violent crazy people.

Although, he had to admit, they would have been boring if they weren’t like that.

Take Sara Lance for example: she had gone through nearly the same experiences as Damien and Malcolm, but she had chosen to dedicate her life to running a team of moronic lunatics who careened around time causing more trouble than they were trying to prevent. Eobard had long since given up wasting his intellect on the particulars of that decision.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked, making no attempt to leave Malcolm’s arms.

“First, we’re going to get a snack. You know how you get when you’ve been working for a while. That should give Damien enough time,” Malcolm said and grinned.  
That wasn’t a good sign. Whatever was going on, Malcolm and Damien had planned it out beforehand. Their plans had a way of getting out of hand rapidly.

Eobard didn’t bother trying to protest. After his cold nearly a month ago, Malcolm had gotten even more set in his ways. His entirely annoying, over-the-top motherly ways. The only thing Eobard looked forward to in this mess was a snack.

Malcolm put him down when they got to the kitchen at least.

“So, what would you like? I’ve got some nice apples, half a chicken but you don’t like those, I think this is spaghetti. I have no idea how long this has been in here. It’s worse than the one time I looked through Tommy’s room.”

Malcolm gave the refrigerator a disgusted look.

“If you feed me chicken again, I’ll stuff it into your cranium,” Eobard grumbled. It wasn’t that he really hated chicken, he had just eaten WAY too much of it as a child.

“Apples it is,” Malcolm announced and produced the fruit with a flourish that proved the League had been right to call him The Magician. Honestly, couldn’t the man do something without making a show out of it?

On second thought, Eobard didn’t mind. Malcolm had a way with knives that made Eobard want tips every time he saw it. Damien, of course, was better than both of them and insufferably smug about it. That didn’t stop him from getting mesmerized by Malcolm’s superior showmanship, though.

What was Damien? Eobard had been so distracted by Malcolm grabbing him that he’d lost track of the other one.

Not good. Whenever one of them went off, he inevitably came back bloody and trailing trouble.

Eobard decided to use his speed to search the house while Malcolm chopped apples. He made it through most of the ground floor before slamming face-first into the closed office door.

How many times did he have to ask that all the doors remain open?! He hated closed doors. They were always getting in the way- like now! – and they made him anxious. He wasn’t sure why, but a closed door always made him want to know what was on the other side, even if he already knew what was there. A closed door meant a mystery and he hated feeling that way.

“Eo! Let me see!” Malcolm pried his hands down from his face and looked appalled at the gush of blood. “You’ve broken your nose. Come on, I’ll get you cleaned up.”

Eobard wasn’t concerned about his nose. It would heal in no time flat. He sat at the table and ate apple wedges while Malcolm mopped blood off his face and got his nose set straight.

The sugar in the fruit helped him calm down from the murderous rage of having a closed door in the house. By the time his nose stopped hurting, he felt like he could ask questions without slamming anyone into a wall.

“Why was the door closed?!” he demanded. That was not a good start. How had he managed to misjudge that question so badly?

“Dami needs to gather up a few things and you can’t see what they are. Don’t get mad, this is all part of the plan,” Malcolm soothed, brushing a bit of errant hair back from Eobard’s forehead.

Eobard seethed, but he didn’t say anything else. Clearly, he couldn’t say anything nice. Normally he wouldn’t care, but Malcolm was important, and Eobard always felt bad when he was rude, even if Malcolm himself thought it was funny. He leaned forward and put his head on Malcolm’s chest.

“That’s one way to get rid of boredom,” Damien commented dryly. “Might I suggest taking this upstairs and forgetting the plan?”

Eobard jumped and little flickers of red lighting crawled over his body. As usual, his reaction made Damien chuckle.

“Damien, we spoke extensively about the plan,” Malcolm reminded him, easing a step back from Eobard. “Sex is not what Eo needs right now.”

“Didn’t you and I come out of boredom?” Damien countered, posing in the doorway.

“Just tell me what the stupid plan is,” Eobard got out through clenched teeth. Maybe he loved them, but he still didn’t relish conversations like this.

Damien grinned and produced a bundle of note cards. “It’s very simple. We’re going to give you some cards. You’re going to do what the cards tell you. Mal’s convinced that after a few of these, you won’t be bored anymore.”

That had abuse potential written all over it. Eobard knew exactly the kinds of things they were going to make him do. He could already feel his face burning.

“Care to do the honors?” Damien asked, holding the cards out to Malcolm.

“Don’t mind if I do.” The other man took them and made a big show of shuffling them. Eobard rolled his eyes. Once again, Malcolm had to be dramatic. Despite himself, he shifted with anticipation. Maybe it would be humiliating, but it would be something new to do.

“All right, Eo. Draw five cards without looking at them. Then pick one and do what it says. Pick the next one only after you’ve finished the first.”

“And you can’t pick news ones if you don’t like any of the tasks,” Damien added. He was still grinning.

Well, there was no way they could stop Eobard from breaking the rules, but he decided to behave himself. He drew five cards, tucked four of them into his back pocket, and kept one in his hand.

Malcolm and Damien watched him with knife-edged anticipation. Eobard considered taking his time, just to torment them, but he couldn’t summon up the patience. He flipped the card over.

“Record Ray Palmer singing. Bonus: record an original song.”

Malcolm and Damien made an ironically heroic attempt to smother their laughter.

“Did you write these, or did you recruit my idiotic non-relatives?” Eobard asked acidly, to cover up the spark of interest that was sizzling inside of him. This was something he knew how to do, and it was a lot more fun than tracking down stupid scientists who couldn’t help him.

Malcolm and Damien stopped trying to cover up the laughing. Eobard rolled his eyes yet again, dropped a kiss on both of their heads, and left.

It occurred to him a little late that he had no idea where to find Ray Palmer, but a second’s consideration reminded him there was nothing at the lair that could help him. He’d just have to get creative.

“Why didn’t they think of this earlier?” Eobard said to himself, surveying the Time Bureau headquarters. An organized, professional office of people dedicated to preserving time sounded so much better than the Legends.

Still, he didn’t care. This just looked like the best place to get a location on the Waverider. He zipped inside, wondering where such information might be kept. Would he have to kill anyone to get it? That wouldn’t bother him much, but it would be harder to catch Ray Palmer unguarded if the Legends were investigating some murders.

The building was surprisingly empty. Maybe all the agents were busy defending time. Eobard wouldn’t mind if they were. He entered a big room, occupied by a blonde woman and a gangly dark-haired man. They were standing still to his eyes, but the woman’s posture suggested she was telling the man off for something. On the screen in front of them was a display of the Waverider. 

Yes! Eobard memorized the time and place and left.

It was a wonderful day in 1930’s Peru. The Time Idiots had landed their ship on a grassy mountainside overlooking a little village and were busily engaged in blowing it up. Eobard phased through the door and started looking for a hiding place.

“I beg your pardon, but you can’t be here,” said a pleasant woman’s voice from nowhere.

“Gideon, don’t tell the Legends. I’m not here to kill or attack anyone in any way,” Eobard said hastily. The last thing he needed was the ship’s A.I. giving him away.  
“I can’t take your word for that, Mr. Thawne,” Gideon replied serenely.

Eobard felt his shoulders slump. “Gideon, I’m here because I’m bored. Malcolm and Damien gave me a sort of scavenger hunt to make the boredom go away and the first task involves your crew.” He pulled out the card to show Gideon.

The A.I. considered for a moment. “Very well, Mr. Thawne. That does sound amusing, but if you do anything to hurt the Legends, I’ll personally tell every single one of them what you’re here for.”

Eobard would have behaved without the threat of so much humiliation, but he supposed Gideon felt like she had to threaten him.

“Thank you,” he said and went back to looking for a hiding place.

Since Ray was a scientist, it would be best to stake out his comfort zone: the lab. Unfortunately, there was nowhere to hide in there. Eobard searched the entire room, at regular speed, but didn’t find anything that would do the job. He just had to stand next to the chem cabinet and hope Ray wasn’t observant.

He was torn between hoping he wasn’t and hoping he was. No self-respecting scientist could afford to be unobservant, but Eobard really needed to go undetected.

“Ah, the Legends are coming back,” Gideon said, unprompted. Eobard hadn’t expected her to give him a heads-up like that, but he was grateful. He got into position and waited.

Lucky for him, Ray came right to the lab. Eobard had the regular speedster span of patience, which was almost zero, and he couldn’t have gone undetected for very long if he had to wait.

“How did all these papers get on the floor?” Ray asked, stooping to gather them up. Eobard frowned. He didn’t think he’d knocked any papers down.

“Well, it must have been our landing. We really underestimated those Peruvian crosswinds.”

He popped into view, setting the papers on the table. Eobard searched his pockets. Now would be a really bad time to have forgotten his phone. It was outdated technology from his standpoint, but he still needed it to complete the task. 

He found it, tuning out Ray talking to himself, and poked through the controls until he found the video function. Now he just had to wait some more.

He peered carefully around the cabinet, curious about what Ray was even doing. He wasn’t working with any tools, just shifting papers around and talking to himself. Maybe he was working with equations?

Eobard liked equations.

Try and focus, he said to himself. Going out there would be a bad idea, followed by a fight, and he wouldn’t get what he needed.

“Okay, Ray, just be cool,” Ray said to himself, sitting a little straighter on his stool. “It’s just a nice chat, nothing to be too worked up about. It’s just Nate.”

The door slid open and another Time Idiot came in. Eobard racked his brain, trying to remember what his name was. He was the one with the weird hair, who liked all the people.

“Hey, Nate!” Ray exclaimed, with a big smile.

“Hey, man. What’s up?”

Nate, that was it. Sometimes Eobard really hated how easily he forgot things. Ray chatted with Nate and Eobard tuned it out. Really, was it so hard for him to just do a little song so that Eobard could leave? This pathetic crush was going to gag him to death.

Wait…

Eobard studied them, trying to catch up with his brain. Ray was babbling, still radiating his sunshine cheerfulness. While Eobard watched, he dropped a pen and had to lean down to retrieve it. Nate nodded along, a half-smile touching his features, resting a hand on Ray’s upper arm when a laugh was startled out of him.  
Why didn’t those two realize they liked each other? It was so obvious to Eobard that it felt like being poked in the eye. Then again, he was living through proof that Time Idiots were not observant.

Nate finally left and Ray stuck some headphones into his ears. Before long he was belting out the words of whatever he was listening to and Eobard captured it on his phone. He’d finished the task, but he felt reluctant to leave. Was there some way he could push Ray to confess his feelings? Eobard couldn’t just say it himself, but maybe he could leave a message.

He gazed around the lab. Maybe it would be best if he kept things simple. He grabbed a loose bit of paper and scribbled on it. Next time Ray sorted his papers he’d find one that said, “Tell Nate how you feel.”

Eobard left the Waverider with a feeling of accomplishment.

The second one was easy: take a selfie standing on the back of a whale. Eobard didn’t bother changing times, he just ran to the coast, crossed onto the water, and ran until he found a whale sunning itself on the surface.

Around the time he got back to the shore, his watch warned him that the Black Flash was coming, so Eobard had to take a break from the game to lose it. The effort left him shaking with hunger, so he stopped in modern times to get some Big Belly Burger before his next card.

Eating wasn’t the same without Malcolm and Damien talking over his head. Eobard had never expected he would miss Malcolm complaining about his love of burgers or his disdain for breathing, or Damien making sarcastic and suggestive comments. Not choking on his lunch was a nice change, but it was suddenly lonely.  
What was he going to do when he had to put them back in their own times? Damien in particular was heading for a death that Eobard couldn’t prevent. As always, thinking that was like sticking a vibrating hand in his own gut. Malcolm was still alive in his proper time, but his life was bleak: a daughter who hated him, the enmity of everyone who knew about him, and no real way to alter his circumstances.

If the Legends caught them, Eobard wasn’t sure he could stop them from taking Malcolm and Damien away. Those idiots knew about the Black Flash now and he would be risking what was left of his life to fight them.

Eobard left the building, wanting nothing more than to go home and curl up between them.

Why not? He wasn’t bored now, so there wasn’t much point in finishing the game. Maybe it was better to keep as many of those cards available as he could. Eobard knew well enough that he would get bored again, probably sooner rather than later.

He went back to the lair, remembering to stop on the front steps and open the door rather than phasing through it. He might not like closed doors, but he could understand the need to keep the front door closed. Exterior doors had to be closed, but he’d have to complain the next time he ran into an interior door.  
Malcolm and Damien were on the couch again, fiddling with their respective weapons. Eobard settled between them and dropped his head into Malcolm’s lap. He didn’t care if he got poked in the eye by an arrow, comfort was worth it.

Damien slung a leg across Eobard’s without even commenting.

“Eo, did something go wrong?” Malcolm asked, setting his work aside and combing his fingers through Eobard’s hair.

“No. I just want to be back here with you two. I’m not bored anymore, just tired.” A yawn caught him by surprise. But that was speedster nature. Eobard could be firing on all cylinders one moment and then collapse into a heap the next if one of them gave him a hug. 

“That actually worked? Who would have guessed,” Damien said, automatically taking Eobard’s shoes. Evidently, he was going to take a nap even if he didn’t want to.  
“Of course it worked,” Malcolm replied. “Did you really think I would ask you to put that much effort into something that wouldn’t work?”

“You do have a record of putting effort into failed projects.” Eobard could hear metal rasping; Damien had gone back to sharpening whatever sword he was working on.

Malcolm shifted, easing a minor strain on Eobard’s neck. He didn’t take up his arrows again, keeping up his slow comb-through of the speedster’s hair.

“That must make you worry a little bit, Dami. After all, I’m putting a lot of effort into my relationship with you.”

“That’s low,” the white-haired man muttered. Malcolm chuckled smugly. One of them took the cards out of Eobard’s pocket. Judging by the squeeze, it was Malcolm. 

Rather than complain or respond in kind, Eobard let himself doze off. He’d have time later and he’d make the most of it. He wasn’t sure how much he had left.


End file.
